by Lora Leigh
ould have brought my scorecard," she retorted, her chin lifting, bringing them almost nose to nose. "Now let me go, Mr. Wyatt. I did not give you permission to touch me, nor did I give you permission to berate me."
His gaze narrowed, the liquid silver boiling as a subtle mask of male lust seemed to descend upon his expression.
The look did something to her. It caused her stomach to jump, her womb to tighten. This time, her thighs truly did clench as she fought to hold back a response that seemed more instinctive than hormonal or forced.
"You're giving it to me now," he assured her, his nostrils flaring as he seemed to inhale.
Rachel felt heat flare in her face, both from arousal as well as embarrassment.
"How dare you . . ."
"I dare because I've spent too much time watching you flip around my office like some ice queen that no man dare touch, even after you had Amber. I dare because you know what the hell you're doing to me and you stand there in all your indignation and do it anyway."
And he was right. That damned sense of fair play she felt kicked in and made yet another situation more uncomfortable than it should have been.
"Why shouldn't I do it?" She narrowed her gaze on him, her jaw tightening in anger. "I've watched you fuck your way through Washington as though it were your own intimate little playground. What the hell makes you think I want anything to do with a man that so many other women have already had?"
That wasn't exactly the truth, but what the hell. She was getting mad now. The rules didn't apply with the same strength when she was mad.
"Oh, you want me." A tight smile curled his lips. "You can deny it until hell freezes over, sweetheart, but we both know you want nothing more than my hands on you."
Oh, she hated that arrogant confidence that seemed to ooze from his very pores.
Fighting back the arousal that had slipped past her control wasn't easy, but she managed it. As quickly as the blood had thundered through her veins and rushed to the sensitive bud of her clit, it was settling, easing back into its normal pace.
She'd had to learn how to control herself and her responses so many years ago. She and her sister both had learned the danger of ever giving rein to their desires versus locking them down.
She pulled back slowly.
"Nice little trick." His head lowered farther, his lips so close to her own that she stilled just as quickly, terrified of allowing her own to brush against them.
Merinus had warned her about the potency of a Breed's kiss and the hormone that filled the small glands beneath the Breed's tongue.
"What trick." She didn't dare lick her lips, not yet, not even to soothe their nervous dryness.
"Stilling the desire, the needs that claw at you." Before she could evade him his head lowered, his cheek brushing against hers, much too close to her lips. "Tell me, Rachel, do you truly think you can deny me if I share my kiss with you? If I allow you to taste the hunger that's ripping my guts to shreds?"
Lust. It was no more than lust, and Rachel had sworn to herself that she would never be the object of any man's lust again.
She wanted love, not just desire, or mating heat, or forced hunger. Whatever the description, she didn't want it without his heart.
She didn't want to be bound to a man who she knew would feel no more than an overwhelming responsibility to keep her alive.
"Do you have any idea how much I've wanted you?" Curiously gentle, his voice seemed to wrap around her senses, to stroke them with sensuality rather than lust.
"Let me go, Jonas," she whispered. If she felt the warmth of him surrounding her much longer, she might not be able to hold back the need to experience the taste of that kiss he was threatening her with. "Let me go, now."
He released his hold on her slowly, one finger at a time, reluctance filling each move, before stepping back.
"Do you think running away from it is going to help?" he growled, his voice dark, heavy with hunger.
"Immeasurably," she assured him as she moved away from him. "Trust me, Jonas, it will help immeasurably."
At least, it better. As far as Rachel was concerned, it was the last defense she had against her desire for him.
Mating heat, her ass. As though this could be forced without some kind of hormonal kiss. This was desire. The kind her sister had warned her years ago that she never wanted to know, and never wanted to regret.
It was the kind of desire that ended up breaking a woman's heart and scarring her soul. Rachel had no desire to have her world destroyed by a man as Diana had had her world destroyed once.
"Rachel." The sound of Merinus's voice had her turning and facing the woman who had been her dearest friend for most of her life, despite the gap in their ages.
Merinus Tyler Lyons still looked no more than twenty-four years old. Her skin was unblemished, unlined, her brown eyes still bright and filled with youth.
There was something eternally different about Merinus, though, an aura that she hadn't possessed before, a confidence and sense of power that Rachel had sensed the past year when Merinus had called her to take the job with Jonas.
Merinus had saved her life. Rachel had been in a strange country, alone, newly pregnant and fighting for survival after Devon had deserted her in Switzerland.
She had had to fight to survive those few weeks alone in Switzerland after losing her apartment, her job and her passport. She attempted to convince the ambassador there to provide her a ride back to the States. She was certain she could have eventually convinced him to do so without the night spent in his bed, as he was demanding, but things hadn't been looking good.
She had tried to call Kane, but he had been unavailable. She'd lost touch with Merinus and her brother years before, but she'd been unable to reach her sister and had no idea whom to turn to.
Within hours of the message she'd left on Kane's phone, a Breed heli-jet had landed at the consulate and three Breed Enforcers had informed her they had been sent to escort her back to America.
That was friendship, she thought as Merinus stepped up to the porch, her expression hesitant, slightly guilty.
"How did you know?" Rachel asked, certain that Merinus had to have known that she would be Jonas's mate.
Merinus swallowed tightly. "Remember the blood and saliva tests that were requested before you were allowed to land in Sanctuary on the flight back from Switzerland?"
Rachel lifted a brow. "The ones to ensure that I wasn't carrying the flu or some infection that could affect your precious Breeds?"
Merinus's lips twitched at Rachel's acidic tone. "Yeah, those." She nodded as she came closer before taking a seat in the padded chair that sat against the side of the house. "Actually, that is truly what the blood was for. It's standard procedure to run the mating test against any Breed you may come in contact with, though. Jonas was here at Sanctuary when you called, so the test was run against his." She rubbed at her nose thoughtfully. "I actually thought perhaps Diana would be a better match myself. You surprised me."
Merinus was amused. Why didn't that surprise her?
"Diana would have castrated him," she informed her friend as she leaned back against the railing and faced the Prima of the Feline Breed species.
"She would have." Merinus nodded with a smile before sobering. "What about you, Rachel? Will you kill him, or will you love him?"
"Does it matter?" she asked, knowing that Jonas wasn't a very well-liked person among either Breeds or humans.
Surprisingly, Merinus nodded. "It matters very much. You can be his salvation or his destruction. Jonas is one of the most intelligent of the Breeds, and definitely one of the most dangerous. His very nature is his own worst enemy."
"And you think I can save him?" she asked incredulously. "Merinus, when did you lose your mind?"
A rueful smile curved the other woman's lips. "Let's say I've been warned by someone who cares a great deal for him. If Jonas doesn't learn to temper himself, then he'll self-destruct and we'll lose him forever. Win or l
ose, stay or go, the only thing that's going to temper him is his mate. Tag, my friend, you're it," Merinus finished with the childhood rejoinder.
"It was my turn last time," Rachel argued. "Remember? When I took on your brother's temper and that mess he called an office?"
Merinus bit her lip to hide a smile, but Rachel caught the merriment in her gaze as she responded. "Oh yeah. My bad."
"Your bad indeed." She crossed her arms over her breasts and glared back at her. "He's a pain in the ass."
"I'm sure he can be." Merinus nodded with no attempt to hide her amusement now.
"He makes me crazy, Merinus."
"He'll make you crazier," her friend promised.
"I refuse to accept this mating crap."
Merinus sighed then. "It doesn't matter if you accept it. You're here; that's all he needed. Like I said, win or lose, accept or reject, it doesn't matter. Whatever Jonas has to face with you as his mate is what he needs."
"You sound as though you've been looking into crystal balls or something." Rachel snorted.
"Perhaps I have," Merinus responded soberly now. "But really, who needs to? You've seen him. You've worked with him. I knew him before he laid eyes on you, before he sensed that you could belong to him." She leaned forward intently. "He's never known love. He's never known a caress that didn't involve some sort of payment, or a kind word that he didn't suspect didn't come with strings. And I know you, Rachel. I've watched you. You might not love him, but you care for him."
"I lust after his body," Rachel griped. "He's seriously ripped. That doesn't mean I want to risk my sanity for it."
"You care for him." Merinus shook her head in denial. "Don't lie to me. We both know you do."
"He's not completely hateful." She shrugged. "He's tolerable. I don't hate him."
"Are you in love with him?" Suspicions suddenly clouded the other woman's eyes.
"Indeed not." Rachel's eyes widened. "I haven't lost my mind yet, you know."
"Give it time." Merinus waved her hand negligently as though losing her mind were a foregone conclusion. "You haven't lived with Jonas yet."
"And you have?" Rachel questioned the confidence in her tone.
"Not on a bet." Merinus laughed. "Not even for the world.
This is one time, my friend, I do not envy you the adventure."
Just what she needed, an adventure Merinus wasn't willing to fight her for.
"You're going to owe me," Rachel promised her.
"And as always, I'll pay up." There was blissful unconcern.
Rachel had a bad feeling, a very bad feeling, things were going to get very, very complicated.
And unfortunately, she had yet to see a time when her bad feelings didn't pan out.
She had a feeling it might have been more prudent to have stayed in Switzerland.
CHAPTER 5
The office was set up on the far side of the cabin, a vacant wing that Rachel had learned had been added only in the past year in case Jonas was forced to attend to business from his cabin in Sanctuary rather than the Bureau's offices in D.C.
The three-room wing boasted a large outer office for Rachel, a larger inner one for Jonas and an attached nursery for Amber complete with a Breed nanny to oversee her while Rachel was working.
What more could a personal assistant ask for?
Outside the wing was a large parking area, a sheltered yard with a toddler play set that Amber wouldn't be playing on for quite a while, if ever, and a Breed guard.
All the benefits of the D.C. office complete with additional security. There was no chance of meeting Brandenmore after dark any longer. Nope, all she had to contend with now was Jonas.
After a week of dealing with Jonas in his mating mood, Rachel was starting to wish she simply had to face Brandenmore. She doubted the other man was as completely arrogant as Jonas on a bad day.
"Rachel, if you schedule another appointment with Racert in D.C., we're going to have words." Jonas stepped from the office first thing that morning and glared at her with the promise of retribution gleaming in his eyes.
Rachel lifted her brow once that first breathless, sensually weak feeling that always assailed her when he walked in the room had passed.
"Racert is important to the funds that Senator Tyler is attempting to get approved through the Senate, Jonas, you know that," she reminded him as she kept her attention on the file she was currently adding information to. "I would be more than happy to deny the meetings he requests once you get those funds."
"You're going to begin denying them now," he informed her. "I have an assistant director, you know. Pawn the bastard off on him."
Rachel turned and stared back at Jonas with an expression of mocking disapproval. "We need to discuss your idea of an assistant director. Brim Stone isn't exactly the most tactful choice you could have made. I think his attitude may even be worse than yours. He growled at a congressman's aide yesterday and caused the man to wet himself."
No one ever accused the Breeds of failing to use intimidation to get their way.
"Pawn the damned meeting off on him," Jonas ordered.
"No." Rachel turned back to the file despite the sudden jump of her heart as she made the denial. It was never, ever easy to challenge Jonas Wyatt.
"I know a volcano hungry for a sacrifice," he muttered behind her. "You'd make the perfect candidate."
"Hungry volcanoes only accept virgin maidens," she informed him tartly. "That leaves me out of the running."
She almost grinned at the disgruntled growl that sounded behind her.
"Fine. Pack a bag. You're going with me."
Rachel froze.
She turned to him slowly once again, her fingers still poised on the keys of the electronic display board.
"Excuse me?"
Jonas moved closer, the lean, powerful shift of muscle holding her gaze even as she fought it. Hell, fighting it was becoming harder each day.
"I said, pack a bag. You'll be going with me. For the meeting as well as that insane embassy party you scheduled for me. Afraid to have me at home, mate?"
She swallowed tightly. Actually, she was. She wanted him out of the cabin, at least for a single night--long enough to rebuild the defenses she could feel weakening against him, despite his arrogance.
"I can't leave Amber . . ."
He snorted at that. "Merinus was taking Amber tonight anyway. Did you think Callan wouldn't inform me of that? What did you think you were going to do, Rachel? Get rid of me so you could rid yourself of the desire plaguing you?"
Actually, that had been her plan.
Her lips thinned mutinously. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Do you think I don't know about those very intimate toys that you picked up when you went shopping with Merinus last week? For God's sake. Those Breed guards on your ass don't take their eyes off you, Rachel, no matter what you think."
Mortification flamed in her face.
She'd been so certain she had managed to slip her purchases past the guards who had trailed after her and Merinus as they shopped several days previously. After all, she hadn't even bought the items herself. She'd convinced the sales clerk to take care of everything and then slip her the bag.
"Let me guess." His voice dropped to a husky, sexy croon as he flattened his hands on the top of her desk and leaned forward. "While the cat's away, the mouse thinks she's going to play?"
"That was the general idea," she gritted out. "So go away so I can play in peace."
She had no doubt in her mind that those ultra-sensitive ears of his would pick up the sound of a vibrator.
"Forget it." He straightened with a snap, his silver eyes like dark flames raging in his face as he glared down at her. "Now pack. You're going with me."
"I will not." Rachel came to her feet now, anger churning inside her at the complete arrogance of the order. "I am not required at either the meeting or that insane party being held for the ambassador to Switzerland. He's a jerk."
&nb
sp; "Yet you thought I wouldn't mind attending?" he asked with carefully banked sarcasm. "How kind of you, Rachel. Pack a bag before I pack it for you."
Hadn't Merinus said something about Breed males enjoying spoiling and giving in to their mates?
"Come on, Jonas," she tried another tactic. A sweet smile. She batted her lashes at him. "You don't really need me there, do you? You know I hate these parties. You've always let me out of them before."
Amazing.
She watched his expression, and for the briefest second, she thought she was actually going to get away with it.
"You know," his voice dropped, became harder, "I'm certain that sweet little act would work if you were actually sharing my bed. But since you aren't"--he flashed those wicked incisors at the sides of his mouth--"pack that fucking bag."
Rachel flinched. She hadn't heard him curse like that in all the time she had worked for him. Her eyes widened as he turned on his heel and stalked from the office, the door slamming hard enough that her gaze shot to the room where Amber was sleeping, fully expecting to hear her disgruntled cries.
She slept on.
Breathing out hard, Rachel turned back to the door he'd just about slammed from its hinges.
Now, was that a Feline hissy fit or what?
Did she dare not pack to accompany him?
She grimaced. Hell, she had a feeling if she didn't pack, he would do just as he threatened and pack for her. Then he'd likely throw her over his shoulder and cart her to the heli-jet like a damned war prize or something.
Now wasn't that just what she didn't need: Jonas in a snit.
It looked like it was going to be a while before she was allowed to play with her new toys after all.
Jonas stalked from the cabin, his control shot, and he fully admitted if he had stayed in that office so much as a heartbeat longer, then he was going to jerk her from her chair and kiss those pretty lips like the hungry Lion he was turning into.
The glands beneath his tongue were swollen to capacity now. They throbbed like a son of a bitch and the taste of cinnamon and cloves filled his mouth like a particularly forbidden sweet.
Sweet Lord have mercy, she was making him crazy.
Jumping into the Raider he kept parked in the driveway, he signaled to the two hidden members of Ghost Team that he was riding out, started the vehicle and backed out of the smooth parking area.
It was time he had a talk with Merinus. The meddling she had done in his life was becoming dangerous. He was poised on a razor's edge here and it was going to begin affecting his job.
Even Brim Stone, the Coyote Breed he'd elected to cover for him in D.C., was becoming frustrated with Jonas's lack of tact, which was worse than normal.
According to Brim, he was like a Lion with a sore paw, and if someone didn't dig out the splinter, then he was going to do it himself, with a knife.
Jonas had dared him.
It was never a smart thing to dare a Coyote. God knew most of them didn't have the power to turn away from a dare. They were fucking insane like that.
Pulling the Raider into the circular drive in front of the estate house, Jonas jumped from the vehicle and strode quickly up the marble steps to the double doors.
A Breed guard opened the door for him. Jonas expected to come face-to-face with part of the Pride family, but instead came to a stop at the sight of Cassandra Sinclair as she sat at the bottom of the staircase, staring up at him.
The eerie blue of her eyes could be disconcerting, to Breed as well as human. Her innocent face was somber, the long, heavy curls of her hair flowing around her like a thick, black cape.
Dressed in jeans, a light sweater and sneakers, there was still no way to pass this particular Breed off as anything but what she was. A very preternatural woman-child.
"How is your mate?" Cassie propped her arms on her knees before laying her cheek against them and staring up at him inquisitively.
This was the same young woman that the year previously had stood in front of the Breed tribunal and argued, quite successfully, that the female mate of the Coyote leader had the right to deny her mate. That she could indeed live apart from him, as long as she submitted to close protective supervision. That Breed Law had no right to interfere in free will and a woman's right to choose, and that the Coyote leader, Del Rey Delgado, had unfairly and with deception mated the woman against her free will.
All of that might well be true, Jonas had argued. But the Coyote leader had rights as well. It was he who would have to know when his mate suffered. It was the male who would have to bear the burden as well as the guilt should anything happen to her once she left his care.
The Breed tribunal hadn't heeded his arguments. Hell no. Instead, they had stood fast and followed the very skillfully presented argument this child had presented.
At nineteen, most Breeds were considered so fully grown that the majority of them had been killing for more than four years. Breed children were sent for their first kill between the ages of ten and fifteen.
Cassie, barely nineteen, had yet to take a life. And with her mix of Coyote and Wolf DNA, she might possibly be more